'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' Speaks Truth Through Humour.

Best Quotes:

There are actually so many, this list would go on forever, so I've cut it back a bit to reveal the most memorably hilarious quotes and conversations from Cloudy starting with:

Earl: You see this contact lens, Flint Lockwood.

Flint: Mmhmmm.

Earl: This contact lens represents you.

Flint: Alright.

Earl: And my eye represents my eye.

Flint: Okay..

Earl: I've got my EYE on YOU!

Flint: I wanted to run away that day. But you can't run away from your own feet. (after inventing spray on shoes that he realizes, in from of his classmates, can never be taken off).

Flint: We've got a Diem to Carpe!

Earl: I'm gonna slap him IN THE FACE! I know he made the food, but that food was made to order, and now it's time for all of us to pay the bill.

A look at how 'Cloudy...' portrays real social issues

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs is a film I have seen on numerous occasions, not because of the underlying social commentary or for the long list of casting choices from Anna Faris to Mr. T, but simply put, it has me on my ass laughing every time I watch it.

It started in 1982 as a children’s book that told a story of a town where food fell from the sky. The film’s quirky and childlike through and through with some amazing one-liners that will stick with you. The visuals are realistic and colourful but at the core of the story are some adult themes, what begins as a fairy tale soon turns to a disaster film.

Swallow falls is a tiny island whose whole economy is based on the sale of sardines. The towns also lived on them as the main hero, Flint Lockwood, tells us they were boiled, fried, pickled, candied and the list goes on and on. The town falls hard however when the whole world suddenly realises that “Sardines are super gross!” Flint Lockwood, a scientist since childhood, creates a machine that turns water into food and while trying to get enough energy to make it work he, accidentally, fires it into the atmosphere where it soon begins to create food and drop burgers all over town.

Enter the villain, the Mayor whose gluttony knows no bounds as he pushes Flint to overwork the machine to fulfil all his food desires (while, Flint at the same time, takes orders and requests from nearly everyone in the town). The mayor’s waistline expands to the point that he needs to get around on a rascal symbolizing the town’s attitude for larger quantities and sizes of food (and maybe symbolizing our own desires for more food, living in a society where food is over produced in excess rather than producing the amount that’s actually needed and no more). Another aspect that reflects our own reality is the waste food in Swallow falls. As in real life, we are producing excess amounts of food so as not to lose any potential customers and if those customers don’t buy, the food is dumped in huge landfills just like Swallow falls inhabitants who throw the food over a hill because “out of sight, means out of mind”. This is the most realistic reflection of modern civilization as every shop, cafe, restaurant, butcher and baker simply throw out any food that has not been sold, whether gone off or not. No-one in the film suggests using this unused food to feed the poor or hungry, they simply throw it away, nor do they suggest making duplicates of the machine to use worldwide. It reveals the questionable methods of our cultures food industries and how we are manipulated by them even to the point of harming our health and well-being. In simple: food unused is rubbish!

There are also some amusing yet sombre messages throughout. A very funny scene was where Flint is on the phone to his father trying to talk him through sending an email and of course all of their lives are in danger. He tells his father to drag the mouse across the screen and his father proceeds to literally drag the mouse on the computer screen asking “What screen??” The message is that we will never be able to keep up with technology.

Another little humorous moment was when a cameraman from a news-station says he’s also a pilot then a doctor too back in Guatemala, saying ironically that he came here for a better life! The message here reflects many immigrants who move from their homeland in search of better, sustainable lives and end up worse than they were to begin with.

Chicken Brett, another hilarious character depicts many people falling from fame. As a child he was the face of the sardine industry and grew up as the most famous person in town. Soon after Flint makes the ‘FLD-SM-DFR’ or the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator, Brett loses his fame and wants to join Flint in his attempt at stopping the machine. He gets eaten by a chicken but amusingly fights the chicken from the inside and takes control of its body, turning him into ‘Chicken Brett!’ He sacrifices himself so that Flint can escape knowing it might danger his life. Symbolically this can be seen as actors taking jobs that could ‘kill their careers’ in the hopes that it may boost them. Chicken Brett reborn becomes a hero once again.

So, underlying message abound, jokes left, right and centre, great casting choices and wonderful storytelling, this is one that definitely gives food for thought, while satisfying your hunger for hilarity.